The present invention relates generally to test equipment and more particularly to an improved electronic probe device for use in electronic signal acquisition and measuring.
With advances in the state of the art with regard to semiconductor and electronic device manufacturing techniques, integrated circuits (ICs) or electronic xe2x80x9cchipsxe2x80x9d have become smaller and smaller while, at the same time, including more circuitry to which electrical connections must be made. As ICs move to higher density pin packages to accommodate more functions, the physical pitch or distance between connection points or pins along the edges of the chips decreases. This decreased pitch, in turn, has made signal waveform capture with an oscilloscope probe for design and/or testing of the chip increasingly difficult. In many cases, an individual must count the number of pins from an edge or other reference point on the chip in order to position the probe to make contact with the appropriate pin connector on the chip. This is an exceedingly difficult task because of the very small dimensions involved and the available light conditions relative to the spacing of the pins. The process of signal acquisition therefore frequently produces erroneous results because a test probe did not make contact with the proper pin.
The high impedance probes available today offer very fine tips designed to probe the high-pin small-pitch pin parts. The problem, however, is that there are so many pins that if the pin to be probed is one in the middle of 50 pins or more along an edge of a chip, it becomes difficult to count the correct pin since the naked eye cannot easily distinguish the individual pins from each other within such a crowded environment. In many cases, a tester loses track of the pin count and must start over to insure the proper pin count to contact the correct chip pin in order to acquire the desired signal being examined on an oscilloscope. Moreover, with such small pin pitch, a probe is more likely to be inadvertently placed between pins instead of directly on only a target pin, and contact with more than one pin can result in a system power-down or permanent IC damage.
Accordingly, there is a need for an enhanced probe apparatus which is effective to enable and facilitate the placement by a human tester of the probe on a desired specific pin within an array of pin connectors from an integrated circuit or other high density pin environment.
An enhanced probe apparatus is provided for facilitating pin contact on a multi-pin integrated circuit or other high density connector-pin environment. The probe includes vision-enhancing devices coupled thereto. In one exemplary embodiment, a magnification device and an illuminating device are mounted in a selectively adjustable manner to optimize the magnification and illumination of a pin contact area on one edge of an integrated circuit chip in order to facilitate pin identification and probe-to-pin contact for signal acquisition.